Training Phonological Awareness In Children With Cochlear Implants Supervisor

training phonological awareness in children with cochlear implants supervisor: dr cristina romani http://www1.aston.ac.uk/lhs/staff/az-inde

Training phonological awareness in children with cochlear implants
Supervisor: Dr Cristina Romani
http://www1.aston.ac.uk/lhs/staff/az-index/romanic/
This project will assess whether an intensive program that trains
awareness of speech sounds (technically, phonological awareness) in
children who have received a cochlear implant improves skills in
processing spoken language, reading and spelling. It is well known
that dyslexic children greatly benefit from similar phonological
training. A reasonable expectation is that these programs will also
help children who have received a cochlear implant, but have not quite
reached age-appropriate language levels.
The ability of cochlear implants to restore auditory processing in
profoundly deaf individuals is one of the major scientific
achievements of our times. Thanks to cochlear implants many previously
profoundly deaf children are now able to achieve abilities in
processing spoken speech which are within normal range. However, there
are large individual differences. Not all children do equally well and
most children with cochlear implants achieve language skills which are
lower than those of children of the same chronological age. Given the
amount of research which has been devoted to improve surgical
techniques and the mechanical devises used as implants, it is
surprising that not more has been done to develop behavioral/cognitive
therapies which may maximize the success of cochlear implants.
Right after surgery, children with cochlear implants are given
intensive therapy to help them recognize basic language and
environmental sounds and to tune the sensitivity of the cochlear
implant so that sounds are perceived at a comfortable level. However,
therapy generally stops after a year. Our hypothesis is that more
sophisticated intervention carried out at this time may help many of
them to go an extra length in their development of spoken language
skills. Extensive research has demonstrated that programs which train
awareness of speech sounds improve literacy skills both in normally
developing children and in children with developmental dyslexia. These
programs focus on the ability to isolate and identify sounds (phonemes
and syllables) in a continuous acoustic stream. From an acoustic
point, words are a continuous signal. There are no perceivable gaps
between syllables or between phonemes. Thus, to identify these units
is far from trivial. However, this identification is crucial for
speech perception since differences between phonemes carry differences
in meaning. We want to extend the use of these programs to children
with cochlear implants.
In collaboration with Prof Renee Beland at the University of Montreal
we have translated and adapted a phonological training program to use
with children with cochlear implants. This program features a number
of computer exercises in the form of games to play with fictional
cartoon characters from different planets. The graphic and the games
are engaging and our pilot results indicate that the children both
enjoy playing the games and get significant benefit from them. We have
also artificially modified the acoustic stimuli of some of the games
so that contrasts between phonemes (e.g., /b/ vs. / /p/) are enhanced
and more easily discriminated by children with cochlear implants. The
project has received ethical approval from the NHS.